Context is Love and Romance #4, page 10
Transcript:
Narration: The moment our lips met… I knew! My preoccupation with women’s lib had ended… I was surrendering!
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Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of light novels, and I’ve almost given up on reading ones written by men. (The reason I’m calling out LNs specifically is that I think they have a lot less editing than the usual novel.) The one I’m currently reading, even in side stories supposedly from a woman’s perspective, every time a woman’s character is introduced, we get to learn exactly how big her boobs are. Women are apparently always obsessed with other women’s bust sizes. Also, sweets. All women apparently constantly eat as many sweets as they can get their hands on.
It’s as if a woman’s looks boil down to: age, ethnicity, hair style, hair color, body size/shape, and boob size.
If we’re lucky, we might get eye color. But never any facial details. Never any description of the shape of eyes, mouth, or nose.
I’m gonna out myself on main, but I got so sick of the fetishization of women in light novels that I started reading BL/yaoi ones instead.
It…was not better. I just traded one type of goonerbait for another. But at least the main character wasn’t a bland no-talent nobody from nowhere most of the time.
…I’m probably not the target demographic for LNs (I did enjoy Heaven Official’s Blessing though!)
It’s as if a woman’s looks boil down to: age, ethnicity, hair style, hair color, body size/shape, and boob size.
If we’re lucky, we might get eye color. But never any facial details. Never any description of the shape of eyes, mouth, or nose.
Even sexism aside, I can respect if someone can describe these well just because I can’t even begin to describe my own features like these, much less someone else’s.
Ok, but…boobs?
Check. I’ve got moobs
Describe them to us please
I wake up to the rays of the sun streaming through the slats on my blinds, cascading over my irregularly haired chest. I stretch, my moobs lifting with my arms as I greet the sun. I roll out of bed and put on a shirt, my nipples prominently showing through literally any fabric (which is why I dress in layers). I breast moobily to the stairs, and tit downwards.
🤤
I would hope that published novelists would have a higher standard.
But anyways, there are a lot of ways to describe facial features.
The nose is a pretty good starting point. Big/small/wide/narrow/long. Turned up is another common one.
Eyes are often described as large/small/wide/narrow. And behavior, darting around or dead, for example. And emotions: kind/sad.
Large mouth, small mouth. Tooth color. Hygiene. Does it hang open? Do they work their jaw a lot? And some people’s mouths look like they want to smile or frown easily.
I’m actually fond of the less specific ways of describing a face. She has intelligent eyes and severe features, for example. The reader both has a good idea of what kind of face it is, but still leaves a lot of room for imagination.
These are just my thoughts. I am not a published writer.
I’ll second less-specific descriptions. My imagination tends to exaggerate; a book says a character has a long nose? I’m picturing a witch. A strong jaw? I’m thinking Heavy from Team Fortress 2. High cheekbones? Gollum.
In the beginning, I thought I was just dating a pair of boobs, to my surprise, years later I learned there was a woman attached to them, so I married her.
what’s a “light novel?”
Lots of manga and anime are based on light novels. They often have a lot of volumes. For example, my favorite LN is Ascendance of a Bookworm, whose main story has 33 volumes.
Hey, that’s my favorite too!
Anne Leckie recommendation. Her characters have an unknown number of limbs and have a gender diaspora more closely related to planetary culture than to biology.
Plus everyone is catty as hell in the dialog
“Women’s lib”??
Liberation. Early term for feminism.
I read it as libido
One kiss from Superman, and my libido had ended!
Why was he so preoccupied?
She was the one that was preoccupied. The narration in these old romance comics is almost always from the woman’s POV, and this is no exception. Her character is a caricature of a man-hating feminist who throws it all away after a single kiss
That was the joke.
Cool, good to know 😀 I post a lot of comics like The Far Side where people don’t get the joke and need an explanation, so my default is to assume that people are asking questions like that seriously. Not always the case though…
I now have you labeled as “Gets the joke” so I won’t make the same mistake twice lol
lol.
Idk if I haven’t seen them around for awhile but I remember liking these out of context posts. Keep up the good work.
